A Distant Star

Flowers of thy heart, O God, are they
Let them not pass like weeds away
Their heritage, a sunless day

A very distant star, many billions of miles and light years away, exploded recently. Hubble photos reveal a spectacular explosion bursting with color and light revealing a tremendously brilliant crystal center, startling in its diamond appearance.

The brilliance, power, enormity and intensity is so far beyond our understanding, but as I looked at the artist’s rendering of the distant star’s explosion, I thought it looked like a diamond – a huge universal diamond, a kind of universal heavenly symbol. Perhaps, like the Star of Bethlehem, this star, too, is a sign of another return.

Loose thoughts flickered through my head like butterflies in my garden, as the spirit whispered to me, calling me to look into the deeper meaning locked in this most marvelous event. What beautiful diamond lies at the core of everything? What marvelous power and light is inside even the most remote stars in our universe? All of life is a sacrament, every material thing a reflection of the divine. Truth is buried within all earthen vessels and while we might say that on the surface these are just happenings with no particular meaning or essence, on the contrary, they are all outward manifestations reflecting an inner truth, a greater, more profound eternal essence. We are all particles of the divine. To find ourselves is to find God, distributed like dust across the face of the universe. In every microcosm, lies the entire cosmos.


God’s face is imprinted in the tiniest particle of light, each imperceptible glittering quanta, as much as in every exploding sun. How awesome! Breathless, I knew that for an instant, I had glimpsed a truth so profound.


This new revelation contained an urgency. The sudden bursting forth delivered a perceptual impact; in short, a sense of urgency came with the experience of simply seeing this magnificent cosmic display. It was more than just fireworks. It held a message for me, perhaps for all of us that did not go unseen and unheard. Inside all of life is God. Divinity laid at the most fundamental level of life, even seemingly unintelligible life as a huge galactic rock, exploding across space and time.


Simply, if divinity were inside a star, certainly it is inside we fragile, human mortals with fragile flesh and bone, weeping for a brief while on this earthen plane, looking out of ourselves into the blue abyss, wondering for eons what this is all about. Both the question and answer may be revealed inter-galactically. Who are we? What are we? And where do we come from? Philosophers, theologians and scientists have grappled with these questions forever. Perhaps the answer is simple. We are alive, teeming with life itself and in that life is God’s very selfhood, and our sense of purpose and meaning lies in that awareness.


Buried within us is the light, the power and the dynamism of life itself. Nowhere else is closer to God than right here, within these fragile bodies of ours. As we peel away layers of time and teaching, we find that in our most simple nature, most humble origins, also lay our greatest treasure. We are material vessels for the divine. Within us is also a diamond, exploding with power and light across time, and all we have to do is look within and there we find universes of light, eternally unfolding. As simple as this sounds, tragically, it is one of the most difficult things for us to do. We want to do this, we strive to do this, and oddly, it seems to elude us, sweeping us off course just as we’re about to grasp it.


Everything in our lives leads us to this place of self discovery. And, we know it; individually and collectively, we know this. In fact, our culture has hit critical mass on this subject at long last and only now are we ready for the revelation of the diamond within us. It could be the end of an age or the dawning of new one. Behind every apocalypse lies a bright new renaissance. These tandem riders, give birth to God’s self revelation on an enormous cosmic screen.


As we attempt to reach for this truth and its meaning for us, we are forced to look at life in all its practicality and messy detail. The beginning is within us, like the mustard seed, and begs for wisdom’s water in order to grow.


This was written for "Canticles of the Heart" which will be available within the next couple of weeks from Amazon.